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Topic: Alexandra - Slandered and Hated (Read 227816 times)

Alixz

Olga - had you lived then you would have been used to corsets and dress that go down to the ankle. Every woman wore them from age 16 on.

I fact, I still have that "coming of age" thing engraved in my head even though I am not nearly so old and did not live in the 19th century.

Balls were her job. Talking to people and being hostess was her job.

I agree with Selencia that both she and Nicholas wanted to "pick and choose' what parts of the job they wanted to do and what parts they did not want to do. Being a good mother is, of course, a good thing, but being a bad Empress is not something she should have "chosen to do".

- To criticize the casual and uninteresting life of the Russian aristocracy. Even Maurice Paleologue criticizes the "culture of boredom" of the Russian aristocracy. The Russian noble does nothing but enjoy himself, seduce and gossip.

- Dare to have friends who were not "normal". Yes, Madame Viroubova, Madame de Buxhoeveden, Rasputin ... were not rich, descendants of Rurik or owners of 300,000 dessiatines of land.

- Dared to take care of his family. I refer to a very nice anecdote of Xavier Paoli.

- Indicated, indirectly, to several members of the Romanov family that they were debauched or incapacitated. This is the case for many of them.

- Has engaged in social assistance in Russia. Reopening of the medical school for women in St. Petersburg, sanatoria (Halila, Crimea ...), sponsorship of university courses of Mrs. Stassova ...

- agreed to give up her beautiful dresses and pearls to treat war wounded. Who on this forum would have taken an arm cut in his hands without wavering?

- The ill-will of the Russian imperial family. For example, Maria Feodorovna refused to abandon the presidency of the Russian Red Cross to the new empress, as is normally the rule.

The Empress had failings. It's not difficult, she admits herself. She was stubborn, irritable, shy, spoke poor Russian and not good French and she was conscious of not being very happy in public. One day she told Madame Viroubova that she was "a ruin". Alexander Spiridovich also says very just things about the Empress: she was very clumsy to show his gratitude to others. She gave a lot, but she was embarrassed to receive attention.

She had failings, but nothing bad. She was a very hard-pressed woman, very persecuted, but generous, altruist, respectful, faithful in friendship, brave, caring, intelligent. She was also funny (in her letters, her drawings ...) and I find full of "self-mockery". She was able to laugh on her own.

I do not say she had the ideal qualities to be a great sovereign. But it is unfair or ignorant not to love, at least a little, Alexandra Feodorovna.

She was the victim of prejudices, rumors.

She suffers = she is coldShe laughs = she is condescendingShe says nothing = she is proudShe does not speak Russian = she is not RussianShe speaks Russian by making mistakes = people make funShe speaks English = she has a "Teutonic" accentShe wears jewelry = she steals Russian wealth (she came from a very poor Grand Duchy)She does not wear jewelery = she is not a real Russian empressShe defends the autocracy = it is an ultra-monarchistShe defends the Jews = she is too liberalShe refuses to abjure the Protestant faith = she is unloved in RussiaShe is baptized in orthodoxy = she is hated in HesseShe does not care for the wounded = she is indifferentIt deals with the wounded = it does not respect the dignity of its rankShe leaves too much freedom to her daughters = she prepares them badly for the life of court (and to be wives and mothers of big families)She does not give them enough freedom = she is a possessive mother who suffocates her daughters

These are just some of the aberrations I read in my many readings. Until today I have read about 150 books of testimonies and memories written by contemporaries of the Empress (in French, Russian, English, Serbian, German) and about 5,000 press articles ( especially in French and English) written between 1890 and 1920. I read very few contemporary sources to avoid distortions.

I do not think I am a genius, but have read enough to say that the Empress was a woman who suffered much slander by ignorance or gratuitous wickedness.

I am not perfectly objective (I can not be so with the imperial family of Russia), but I have a PhD in history and the habit of not inventing or distorting the facts. If one must evoke the memory of a woman who can not defend herself, one must at least make the effort to read her writings and the testimonies of her contemporaries, especially the most "neutral".

Sorry if I made mistakes, I wrote a lot, things a little complicated, and I have the impression that some sentences are not very correct.

As we see time and again in politics the perception of our leaders (or those closely associated with them such as Alexandra) can turn on a dime as a situation deteriorates. People want scapegoats when times are hard. In the midst of a losing war, bread lines, a rising socialist revolution, and controversies surrounding Rasputin & royal intrigue it's not hard to imagine how N&A went from beloved to reviled by a majority of the Russian people within a few short years.

George H.W. Bush's approval rating stood at 89% after the success of the first Gulf War in early-1991. A year later his rating had plummeted into the 30s and he failed to win reelection in November of 1992. Why? As Bill Clinton once said, "It's the economy stupid!" The US fell into recession, the debt/deficit ballooned, urban plight & crime rates soared, and before long the good feelings surrounding Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War and the Soviet's throwing in the towel on the Cold War dissipated.

Churchill's conservatives got thumped in a shocking defeat to Clement Atlee's Labour Party in the 1945 parliamentary elections in the UK. It would have been hard to find a Brit more popular or respected than Churchill upon the end of WW2 and Allied victory. Yet a majority of British voters didn't think he or his party were the right people to lead England through the post-war rebuild and peace the way they were relied upon to win the War.

My point is that attitudes can change rapidly even when a country isn't in crisis. Considering the state of affairs in Russia after 1914 it's not hard to see why the population would have turned so viciously against an Empress who was never beloved in the first place.

Logged

Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right...

I think it's possible today to understand how easy and comfortable it was for everybody to blame the Empress Alexandra - as if she could have done anything to stop the antagonism against Tsarism that was growing over many decades. A more popular empress like her mother-in-law couldn't have stopped it - her popularity in court circles wouldn't have charmed revolutionaries, intellectuals or political organizers. It's always easy to put the blame on a woman who doesn't conform to expectations. Marie Antoinette is a point in case. Reading Antonia Fraser's biography, it becomes clear how evil the slander against her was.

Alexandra was an introvert, had health problems, and probably didn't totally understand the difficulty of the role of the Russian empress. She wanted to fill this role the way her cousins in Victorian England filled their roles, and the way her mother had done in Darmstadt: by nursing, support for social work and charities. That's actually a much more modern idea than her mother-in-law embodied. She might have succeeded in re-defining the role of the Empress successfully if her first childi had been a healthy son. Or if the government had changed the law to make Olga the heir. After all, Russia had had empresses before. That would have taken pressure from Alexandra.

I count her and Marie Antoinette among the most misunderstood and slandered persons in history. By exaggerating their options of taking actions, they are blamed by their critics for developments that were not in their power to stop. And that exonerates the many actively responsible people around them.